Releasing December 2, 2008 from Berkley Heat

A sexy debut exploring an erotic future universe of passion, danger, and deceit…

On the battleground or in the bedroom, one woman and two men fight for dominance in a bold, new, and excitingly different direction in erotica…

The third team member, Brandt Pela, has an elegance to match Ash’s savage sexuality. And when their undercover plan requires Sera to pose as Brandt’s lover, it ignites a passion among the three of them more dangerous than their mission.

So here’s the deal – I’ve got some electronic ARCS and I’d like to get them out there to folks who’d be willing to review it on blogs and whatnot. These are ELECTRONIC ARCS in PDF. I’ll be receiving some hard copy ARCS and will be doing some contests for them in mid-October going into mid-November as well.

If you’d like to win an E-ARC, just reply here in the comments with your name and where you’d be able to review it. Obviously, if you’ve done contests with me in the past you know I don’t expect you to write good reviews unless you mean them (although I sure hope you do!) but I’m trying to get the word out for this one ’cause it’s my first big NY release!

I’ll choose some winners Monday September 8 at noon pacific. Good luck! (and for those who don’t have blogs or can’t guest review elsewhere, never fear, I’ll be doing contests later on for you all too)

92,685 / 90,000 (103.0%)

RELENTLESS – FINAL

I have just finished Relentless. Happy sigh. It’s off to beta and when I get it back and read it over, it’ll be off to Berkley. Thank you soooo much to Anya Bast, Megan Hart and my third little crit birdie – you have helped so much! I’m relieved and happy and now I’m moving on to Outshined.

So to celebrate, how about a snippet from Undercover – coming December 2 from Berkley Heat

UNDERCOVER BY LAUREN DANE
Copyright 2008, Lauren Dane
All Rights Reserved, The Penguin Group

Her entire life as she knew it had been upended in such a short time! But the truth was, sheÂ’d felt dead inside in so many ways. When sheÂ’d walked away, she expected Ash to follow. And when he didnÂ’t and she saw he meant to go on, sheÂ’d been devastated to see the marriage every time she turned around.

For a time, she sought a replacement for him. Fucking rough men who didnÂ’t know the difference between mastery and abuse. No one had topped her and sheÂ’d never been able to let go enough to submit. It was self abuse, she knew that as she looked back. But at the time, she wallowed and became another person. It wasnÂ’t something she liked to dwell on overmuch because it was weak and she didnÂ’t condone what happened. It filled her with shame but in the end, sheÂ’d risen above it and had found something better than an empty life. SheÂ’d found a calling.

Work became her salvation. She didnÂ’t become the best at everything she tried. Instead, she worked to be the best she could be at those things she excelled at. Once she focused on languages and culture and martial arts, they took over her existence. The military became her everything and over time, sheÂ’d stopped dating and even seeing herself as a sexual being except for when the need hit every year or so. SheÂ’d engaged in brief relationships for sex only and when sheÂ’d been sated, sheÂ’d moved on. SheÂ’d been a finely honed tool in the war against the Imperialists.

And now she felt it all. So much rage, fear, pain and loss that she would have crumpled to knees and wept but the hope burning deep in her stomach saved her. Hope that no matter the outcome with these men, sheÂ’d found herself again, the part of her that was more than just a soldier.

To wit – Undercover, my December 2 release from Berkley Heat is now up for pre-order at Amazon!

Here’s the blurb since there’s not one up yet at Amazon:

Journey to an erotic future universe of passion, danger and deceit…

As a lieutenant of the Federation military, Sera Ayers is more accustomed to giving orders than taking them. Now she must obey the one man she can’t stand—and can’t stop thinking about.

With the enemy Imperialists gaining ground, a new covert team is assembled by Ash Walker. Ten years before, Sera had lovingly submitted to Ash’s dominance in the bedroom. But when he was forced into a political marriage, she left him rather than become his mistress. His marriage now over, Ash wants Sera on his team—and back in his bed.

The third team member, Brandt Pela, has an elegance to match Ash’s savage sexuality. And when their undercover plan requires Sera to pose as Brandt’s lover, it ignites a passion among the three of them more dangerous than their mission…

And, Making Chase is also up for pre-order at amazon. It comes out in print June 24 and I’m totally thrilled. This one is the last Chase Brother book so I hope folks who haven’t read it yet enjoy it.

Still cooking on Sensual Magic for Spice. I’m hoping to wrap it up next week! I’m off again, more busy! I’ll be back in a moment to draw a winner for the Grimspace contest!

Journey to an erotic future universe of passion, danger and deceit…

As a lieutenant of the Federation military, Sera Ayers is more accustomed to giving orders than taking them. Now she must obey the one man she can’t stand—and can’t stop thinking about.

With the enemy Imperialists gaining ground, a new covert team is assembled by Ash Walker. Ten years before, Sera had lovingly submitted to Ash’s dominance in the bedroom. But when he was forced into a political marriage, she left him rather than become his mistress. His marriage now over, Ash wants Sera on his team—and back in his bed.

The third team member, Brandt Pela, has an elegance to match Ash’s savage sexuality. And when their undercover plan requires Sera to pose as Brandt’s lover, it ignites a passion among the three of them more dangerous than their mission…

moar funny pictures

Angie sent me a link to something she created, which made me giggle. She took this pic of me, or someone at Samhain did, at the RT booksigning in April. Anyway, I made the one above of Megan and I last night because she and I sold a book. A book we came up with at RT while standing in line as a matter of fact. I comes out in October of 08, which is verrrrry fast and very exciting. I can’t say for who yet, there’s one last detail to get in place but we have a title and we have a pub date and an editor and it’s all very cool.

moar funny pictures

Also, did you know the amazingly fabulous Anya Bast has a shiny new website? She totally does and it’s gorgeous! Go and oooh and aaah over it! She’s also running a contest at the Maverick author blog to win some fab books so get on over there to check it out!

Speaking of contests… head on over to the Bradford Bunch Blog – I’m doing round two of the To Do List contest!

And last but not least at all – the pub date for Battlefront is December 08! I’m so thrilled! WHHEEE! It’s not going to be called Battlefront (and in all honesty, I didn’t expect it to be, I rarely get to keep my titles, LOL) so I’ll get you the final title soon along with the back cover copy that is so made of awesome I actually squeed with joy when I read it. Leis Pederson, my editor, is so shiny with the blurbage, I’m totally happy with it!

That’s about it for now. I haven’t done much reading this last week to be honest. But I did reac 80K in notBattlefront last night and I’m heading into the home stretch. Whooo.

Another fine young man has graduated from business school and wishes to be my personal assistant! And guess what? He’s also recently come into a huge amount of money and if I just help him by sending him the exact amount in US dollars, he’ll transfer it back to me. What a good boy. His mother must be proud.

Cornell has something exciting to tell me about these pills he took that enlarged his genitalia! Now he’s a total rock star in bed and he can do the same for me and my very small penis.

The real stuff though – awesome with sprinkles. Thanks so much to every one of who who takes the time to write me about my books, I appreciate it so much and it truly makes my day.

I also get books and funny pictures and delete the loop flotsam that makes me wonder why people don’t seem to get the idea that just because we write erotic romance doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remember that not all subjects are appropriate at any old time (and some, my darlings, some – NEVER).

By the way, I’m at 73K words in Battlefront. SQUEEEE!

Last night I met my Sven goal and surpassed it by 2k! This morning I woke up having written 102K words since October 15. I’ve written several books (from partial and one from word zero) as well as partials and a metric ton of edits and revisions. I feel very productive and now that I face the end of this year and start of 08 with loads of deadlines, I’ll be needing those extra days for revisions and crit on Battlefront as well as edits on Standoff and Celebration for the Dead and FLE on Wolf Unbound. I’m totally in love with Sven.

Battlestar Galactica Razor was pretty darned good on Saturday night. I had some lovely red wine and we snacked on chocolates two little birdies sent me in congratulations for my Berkley sale. My kids actually stayed asleep and no one interrupted!

Okay back to work! Don’t forget to enter the Sexy Devil contest!!

Also, the fabulous Dreamforge Media is designing a new blog template for the Maverick Authors! I can’t wait to unveil it. All kinds of exciting stuff going on!

Also, yesterday, the new RT came in the mail. I already knew I’d gotten a fabulous review for Ascension but EC had a backpage ad with one of the anthologies I’m in – Feral Fascination as well as in the Spring books preview, the Vegas anthology got a mention! It was quite lovely to see. Also, some friends got some great reviews, which is also nice to see.

Cooking on Battlefront – and I made a Battlefront book page here so you can read the loose blurb for it and get an idea of what the book is about. I’m just shy of 50K now, over halfway finished with the book and now that I’m getting ready to transition, I’m feeling better about pacing. The middle of a book is always the hardest for me to write!

Tonight is Battlestar Galactica Razor with my dude! It’s a movie that gives you the story of what happened on the Pegasus when the Cylons attacked up until the start of this upcoming season. Yes, yes I am a sci fi freak and I’m proud of it! This movie is on my calendar I so love the series, LOL. Plus, it’s good date night fodder with my husband.

Monday I’ll work on Standoff, it’ll have been a week since I finished so it had some time to digest.

Um, that’s really about it. I’m going to gorge on Gordon Ramsay today on the BBC. I love him so much.

Speaking of loving things and being happy, don’t you wish people could be more often? Have you noticed how certain people seem to thrive on negative things, they never talk about things they love or look forward to? It’s all about things they hate and in truth? I feel sorry for that kind of person. The kind of person who can look at a catalog of things and only see what they wouldn’t like and then they focus on that. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good, “holy crap, what the hell is she wearing?” moment, but I try to eschew the tendency to dwell there. Wheee, eschew (I really am easily amused I’m sorry to say)

Today I saw Anya Bast’s blurb for The Darkest Kiss, her Heat title coming up next year and folks, this book is so fabulous!

What else? Oh! I got 2K more done on Battlefront – a murder is coming! I’ve also nearly finished chapter three in Once Bitten – Nathan’s book. Really productive right now. Which is good so I don’t tend to obsess on stuff I can’t control or start worrying about said stuff I can’t control.

I’d do a wednesday writerly entry but it’s not happenin today, LOL. All right, I have a million things to do and my kids have yet another short day so I have less time to do them! Y’all have a lovely Thanksgiving (for those in the US)!!

But not every scene is like that in a book. Sometimes the scenes it takes longest to write are the ones I read back on later and they make me sweaty! Other times the scene is one I like (or it wouldn’t be there) but while it serves a purpose in the story, it doesn’t particularly move me one way or the other.

Anyway, last night I re-read Battlefront – this is something I do with any project I sell on partial and then pick up later to write. I have to get back into the book and just having written several books and novellas back to back, I needed to find my way into the story again.

The partial ends on an emotional point. A breakthrough emotionally for Sera after an argument she has with Ash. They’ve been apart for ten years, it’s complicated and I’ll talk more about that later. Anyway, they have sex. And the book has BDSM elements. If you’ve read my BDSM writing you’ll know I like to get to the stuff in between people’s heads and emotions rather than just have a few whacks on the ass and call it a day. So essentially, this scene is about walls coming down and true power exchange. And i’m so happy I can look back at it months later and love the scene!

Now, to start writing! And Brandt has just come in so wheeee!